Pieces

Joe White

Ben was on his way back from
class the next day when
Brenda grabbed
his arm so hard he almost lost his balance. Slightly out
of breath from
running to catch up to him, she said, "There was another
one."

A car
whispered by, nearly silent on
the freshly
falling snow. The streetlights reflected between the
clouds and the
snow;
it was so bright out, it seemed impossible that it was 2
a.m.

Ben
chewed on a lock of his long
blonde hair
as he walked, his boots soundless against the snow-covered
parking lot
as he cut across the corner. He jammed his hands deeper
into his
pockets,
trying to sort things out in his head. The snow helped: it
covered
everything
with its silence, even the death, the blood, the loss.
Nights like this
gave him a chance to step back and put everything in
perspective, and
God
knew he needed that now.

There was
always too much going on,
but things
had been even worse the past few weeks. The concert was
next week, and
he had term papers due in two of his classes the week
after that. The
deadline
on his project at work kept trying to push its way into
his mind. He
hadn't
had much time for any of that, not with Brenda.

He shook
his head as he walked. Hard
to believe
everything that'd been happening to her lately, hard to
know what to
think.
It just seemed so unreal. First her boyfriend had been
killed --
stabbed,
then pushed in front of a car. Then one of her best
friends had been
strangled
in her apartment. The police thought the two murders were
connected,
though
they wouldn't say why.

Ben
agreed with them, for his own
reasons.
He was well-known among a select, but growing, group of
people on
campus.
Because he had connections; he knew things, and could
learn things. It
was pretty much a given among everyone he knew that he
would end up as
either a police detective or a P.I. Everything he learned
and passed on
seemed to be from a different source; the man seemed to be
able to see
everything that happened.

And that
was what brought him out
here this
lonely night. He was watching, looking for something --
only he knew
what.
People swore he always seemed to know exactly where to go
to find his
answers.
He sometimes wished that were true. It was more a case of
the answers
finding
him. Or the questions.

He found
some of his answers in the
most unlikely
places -- like the deserted parking lot where he'd found
out his
girlfriend,
two hundred miles away, was cheating on him. The answer
had found him
there,
but the question still bothered him -- had that been his
fault? So many
things seemed to happen that he hadn't planned. But
somehow he always
kept
his calm -- if asked for explanations, he would just shrug
and say, "I
guess I was just in the right place at the right time,"
and speak no
further
on the subject.

But for
all that, he wasn't
mysterious. He
was a bit shy, but friendly and likable. And he had a way
of getting to
you. If you started telling him what was wrong with your
life, he
always
seemed to understand exactly what you meant -- sometimes
he almost
seemed
to know more than you did. And there was just something
about those
dark
eyes and that hesitant smile that you couldn't help but
trust.

That was
what had happened with
Brenda. They'd
seen each other in class, but hadn't known each other to
speak of, at
the
time her boyfriend was killed two weeks ago. Her best
friend had been
out
of town, she'd had no one to talk to and no idea what to
do or how to
feel.
And then Ben had shown up with flowers and a card, saying
he'd heard
what
happened and just wanted to say he was sorry, and even
though it seemed
strange for him to be here, she'd thanked him, and invited
him in, and
in the awkward silence she just started talking, and
somehow she just
kept
talking, and before she knew it she'd been telling him
things her best
friends didn't even know about her. But somehow it seemed
all right.
Several
times she started to feel foolish, babbling on so much to
a guy who'd
just
stopped by to drop off some flowers, but then he'd reach
out and touch
her hand, just offering a little comfort and showing he
cared and he
was
listening and wanted to listen. And she would take a deep
breath, offer
him a shaky smile, and keep talking.

The
memory of that flashed through
Ben's head
as he walked down the road -- how her voice had caught,
how brilliant
her
green eyes had looked with the tears welling up in them,
how hard she
had
hugged him back -- and something caught inside him. He
closed his eyes
for a moment, almost able to imagine that he could catch
the scent of
her
hair in the chill night breeze, and when he opened them
again there was
a determination there. He was going to find the answers he
needed,
whatever
it took.

He was
walking past the old school
now, and
he suddenly realized how far he'd walked. He was way out
north of town
now. He couldn't even remember the past several miles; he
had noticed
nothing
but his thoughts of Brenda. Long way from home, he knew.
But he still
wasn't
ready to head back just yet. Turning his face from a
sudden gust of
wind,
he wearily continued on.

His
friends sometimes used to ask
him to try
and find things out, but they'd been leaving him to
himself lately.
They'd
seen the way he acted when he talked about Brenda. They
didn't know
about
that night in the park just after her friend had died,
when she and Ben
had sat together under the pavilion, and he had held her
while she
cried.
But both their friends knew that the two had come to mean
a lot to each
other.

Remembering. How he'd felt her
shudder when
she tried to take a deep breath. How she'd felt in his
arms. How it had
felt to hold her that close, and know how much she needed
him. How he'd
imagined he could feel her heart beat, even through their
coats. How
he'd
felt when she put her arms around him and held him tight.

He'd been
sitting there with her
that night,
and remembering how his last girlfriend had treated him.
Thinking maybe
it was for the best -- fate letting him go, so he would be
there for
Brenda.
He knew she would never leave him. It was kind of a
strange feeling, to
be needed like this. But he was determined not to let go
of this. He
vowed
to do whatever it took, and his conscience be damned.

She
hadn't asked him to try and find
anything
out about it. Still, she knew he was out here tonight,
looking.

Looking
for another piece to the
puzzle, he
walked on.

He
frowned; it was clear that
something was
very wrong. "Another what?"

Catching
her breath, she said,
"Lena, the girl
who sits next to me in Chem... remember I was telling you,
the
commuter?
She... she was killed, last night." He could see that she
was almost in
tears.

"Shit,"
he whispered, his stomach
doing that
sudden plummeting feeling that he got whenever someone
told him about
something
like this. He stared at her for a second, then dropped his
bag and put
his arms around her. She hugged him back, so tight he
could hardly
breathe.

Finally
she pulled away a little,
and looked
up at him. "I'm scared, Ben," she whispered. "What if I'm
next?"

He shook
his head. "Don't worry," he
said softly,
the certainty in his eyes reassuring her. "I won't... let
anything
happen
to you."

She
looked at him for a long time,
biting her
lip and trying not to cry. Finally she lay her head
against his chest.
"I wish I could be as sure as you are."

He stared
into the distance, trying
to get
hold of his thoughts and think of some way to reassure
her. Finally he
said, "I don't know what I can say. Except to ask you to
just trust
me."

A sudden
thought struck her, and she
shivered.
"What if..." She bit her lip, almost afraid to ask. She
seemed to be
losing
everyone she cared about, everyone she even knew. But he
was there when
she needed him, seemed to know just what to do. Even now,
he could tell
she was scared, and his arms were tightening around her.

Feeling
safer, even if only for a
moment, she
finally asked, "What if... you're next?"

He took a
deep breath, still staring
at nothing.
Slowly he shook his head. "No," he said, his voice so low
it was almost
a whisper. "I won't be."

She was
quiet for a long time. When
she looked
up at him again, he could see the faint streaks of tears
down her
cheeks.
"So you do know something about it, don't you?"

He looked
away. "Not... not much.
All I know
how to tell you is... is that you're safe."

She took
a deep, shaky breath, and
let herself
settle into the safety of his embrace. "Well... just don't
you go away.
I... I need you."

Their
eyes met, and a few moments
later, so
did their lips. The nervous feeling in Ben's stomach was
forgotten as
they
kissed.

He smiled
inwardly, as another piece
of the
puzzle clicked into place.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I'd
like to thank Nialle Woods
for the
pavilion theme. But I'm not going to.

I will
thank several people for
their help.
Tammy Lees had some really good suggestions that helped to
make the
story
what it is now. Brian Collier and Jeremy Pigg offered some
ideas that
helped
me refine the character of Ben. Details here and there in
the story can
be blamed on Mayumi Suwa, Erin Fitzpatrick, Christy Guyer,
and Leah
Gass.
Others had ideas that I couldn't (or didn't) use, but
thanks for those
too!

Many
thanks, as well, to the readers
who didn't
"get" the story, and whose misinterpretations helped me
put it on
something
closer to the right track. Maybe I was a little too
subtle... (The
names
of these people have been withheld to protect the guilty.)

Also,
thanks to Jon J. White and Jen
Olson
for their critiques of my work.